Reading

"Reading is fundamental to education.  Proficiency in reading, writing and spoken language is vital for pupils' success."  (DfE Reading Framework 2021)

Intent
At St Matthew’s, we value reading as a life-long skill.  We want our children to be able to confidently decode and comprehend texts from across the entire curriculum, so that by the time they reach the end of KS2, they are able to access any curriculum subject at secondary school and beyond.

We want all our children to enjoy reading and to do so for pleasure, as well as for information.

We want our children to read widely so they can gain a deep understanding of the world around us and the perspectives of others, share in cultural experiences, deepen their level of emotional intelligence and empathy and develop the vocabulary they need to express themselves effectively.

Implementation
In order for our pupils to become confident readers, we recognise the importance of teaching both decoding and comprehension skills.

We encourage parents to support their children's reading at home daily, in addition to providing extra opportunities for children, where needed, to read with adults at school.

Phonics

Following evidence from the Education Endowment Foundation, phonics is considered to be one of the most secure and best evidenced areas of pedagogy and is the most effective approach for teaching pupils to decode and learn to read.  Our reading curriculum (including phonics) is based on developing language comprehension and decoding (word reading) and spelling (encoding).

We use a systematic, synthetic phonics programme called Read Write Inc Phonics which ensures early success in reading, writing and spelling. It includes Speed Sound Cards, Word Cards, Ditty Photocopy Masters, Ditty Books, Storybooks, Non-fiction and Interactive Stories.

EYFS, Year 1, Year 2 and any KS2 pupils on the programme have a phonics lesson at least once a day. Blending and segmenting are taught alongside each other as reversible processes, at both word and sentence level. All pupils are included in the phonics programme in a way that suits their individual needs. We have clear expectations of pupils’ phonics progress term by term, which is laid out in our phonics progression map.

We plan for all children to keep up with our phonics programme.  Where children need additional support with phonics, they are part of additional phonics intervention sessions on the same day as their class phonics lessons.  This additional same day intervention takes place in a small group or as 1:1 support.

To support the teaching of phonics, we use home decodable reading books, which match exactly to the progression of the programme and include a diverse range of genres, characters and attitudes. Pupils take home a decodable book that matches what they have been taught in phonics. We give pupils the opportunity to read each book three times to allow them to develop the automaticity to read books ‘at a glance’. This gives pupils the cognitive capacity to focus on comprehension rather than decoding.

We continually assess pupils’ progress in phonics in order to immediately put strategies into place to offer extra support or challenge where necessary.

Guided Reading
Each week, pupils in KS2 take part in a guided reading lesson. This promotes pupil engagement and productivity as all pupils receive the expertise of the teacher. These small weekly small group sessions establish fundamental skills necessary for proficient reading, allow staff to identify weaknesses and strengthen specific skills, improve attention to detail and build fluency. They also ensure an expansion of vocabulary knowledge and the development of reading skills with a string focus on inference skills.

Pupils also have the opportunity to read one-to-one with teachers, support staff and reading volunteers.

Comprehension and Vocabulary
We recognise the impact of vocabulary knowledge on academic success and place great emphasis on communication and oracy across all areas of our whole-school curriculum. We therefore implement a language-rich curriculum, allowing pupils to make links across the curriculum to support and extend their use of vocabulary for deeper comprehension.

We speak to the pupils in full – and grammatically correct sentences – and we have a very high expectation that they respond in full sentences. These are modelled by all staff and repetition is also used to reinforce.

Promoting a love of reading, including poetry
At St Matthew’s, we are passionate about promoting a life-long love of reading. We do this in the following ways:

Poetry: We have a very strong focus on poetry as we know it exposes the pupils to such rich language, which positively impacts their language development. Poetry further supports literacy skills, by scaffolding for emerging readers. The children are exposed to such a wide variety of vocabulary, language devices and grammar. Poetry also impacts memory effectively. It allows children to develop empathy through creative thinking and emotional expression. Each term begins with a whole school poetry unit, apart from Term 2 when we end the term with our whole school Christmas Off By Heart Poetry competition.

Story Time: Every class has daily story time where teachers read aloud to the pupils. Some of these texts are the core texts we cover as part of our curriculum, while some are chosen by the teacher to reflect the interests and needs of the class. We ensure that these texts allow pupils to see themselves represented and to understand experiences and perspectives of others. They act to extend and reinforce vocabulary reflecting a range of genres, settings and authors and expose the children to literature they may not choose to read independently.

Book Corners: All classrooms have an inviting book corner, with a focus on the quality and organisation of texts. Pupils are welcomed to read in their book corner and to take texts from the book corner home.

Home Reading: Pupils are expected to read at home daily and they each have a reading record where they – or the parent/carer – can record that this has taken place and make any comments about the reading/book. If the pupils bring their reading record in on each of the specified days, their names go into the Win a Book reading pots from which a name from each class is drawn during Celebration Collective Worship. The chosen names can then choose a wonderful book from our Win a Book case.

Writing

Intent

At St Matthew’s, we value writing as a life-long skill.  We want our children to be able to confidently communicate through the written word across the entire curriculum, so that by the time they reach the end of KS2, they are able to write in a wide variety of genres in order to access any curriculum subject at secondary school and beyond.

We want all our children to enjoy writing and to do so for pleasure.

We want our children to write for a variety of purposes so they can communicate clearly and effectively, using their growing understanding of the world around us and the perspectives of others. This will help them to share in cultural experiences, deepen their level of emotional intelligence and empathy and utilise the vocabulary they need to express themselves effectively.

Implementation
At St Matthew’s, we understand that the more we read, the better writers we become. Vocabulary is central to our writing curriculum and we therefore promote a literature-rich environment, using carefully selected key texts to support both our pupils’ reading and writing development. The key texts allow pupils to make links across the curriculum and therefore provide meaningful opportunities to write for a range of purposes and audiences. Our long-term plans provide pupils with the opportunity to write a broad range of fiction and non-fiction texts, which build in complexity year on year. As part of the writing process, pupils are given regular opportunities to develop their oracy in order to imitate and internalise the language and structures relevant for the piece of writing. Each term the whole school produces a piece of writing, which they then revisit at the end of term to edit ad improve. These themes are: All About Me, Tell Me a Story,  When I Grow Up, My Favourite Book, Family and Friends and How to Take Care of our Planet. 

Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling
The National Curriculum reflects the importance of the use of Standard English; this is something we are passionate about modelling throughout the school, as the quality of language pupils hear is vital for developing their use of grammar in speaking and writing. In line with the National Curriculum, pupils are explicitly taught the grammar, punctuation and spelling objectives required for their key stage, as well as how to transfer and embed these skills in writing. This context really supports the pupils’ ability to recall and use in future writing.

Handwriting
We teach our pupils to write with fluidity, progressively covering the skills required to meet the aims of the National Curriculum for transcription, allowing pupils to focus on the content and accuracy of their writing. In EYFS, pupils develop their gross and fine motor skills as a precursor to handwriting. When introduced to new GPCs in phonics, pupils are taught the correct letter formation which is practised through air writing and in books sitting at tables, rather than with whiteboards on the carpet. In EYFS and Year 1, pupils are not taught to join letters or to start letters with a ‘lead-in’, because these practices cause unnecessary difficulty for beginners. When pupils move to Year 2, pre-cursive handwriting is introduced following the MSL Handwriting Rescue Scheme. As pupils progress to KS2, the focus is on joining letters, developing fluency, legibility and speed. Once this has been achieved, pupils are awarded with pen licence and a handwriting pen. Throughout the school, handwriting is taught through discrete sessions as well as throughout all areas of the curriculum. Staff model the appropriate handwriting for their pupils in books, on the board and on displays. We ensure displays include a mixture of printed and handwritten text.

We want all our pupils to develop a life-long love of the English language and the many ways in which it can be used and celebrated.